By John Bruneau



Welcome. You are being watched. Your privacy is being invaded. Your stage is lit, exhibitionist. We now live in a world where every aspect of our lives is being monitored. The ever watchful eye of surveillance cameras have become one with the urban landscape. Big brother IS our good cities’ ever-expanding totalitarian limelight. Do you perform? or turn and cover your face?

This project will be running for the next month in the front window display of the long closed Clara’s Fashion store. If a passerby approaches the monitor they will, merely by their act of approach, manipulate what they are observing. Voyeurism is turned outward. The observer is inserted into the video feeds and he/she begins to be recorded. The image of the new audience overshadows the other surveillance feeds in direct proportion to how much they try to get the cameras eye. If they stand still their image begins to fade away, disappearing them once again from the monitor feeds. Their presence ceases to be recorded by the piece. They then blissfully return to their life of over documented anonymity.

As part of the San Jose Downtown Storefront Project this interactive artwork investigates the overall themes of interaction between the street, space, and audience. Although these themes are exemplified my all facets of the project as a whole, this peace is primarily designed to bring the audiences attention to: (1) The fact that they (you) ARE being watched whether they like it or not and on a much larger scale than they are aware of. (2) By acknowledging and interacting with the city’s cameras they change the results of the footage being taken of them. It becomes a product of their own design, something other than it was intended by the all knowing overseers. (3) The other installed art peaces showing downtown that make up this overall project. Those interacting with this peace can see the locations where the other surveillance feeds are coming from. By investigating the other sources they will discover the other works.